I. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to communication, and more specifically to techniques for transmitting data in a wireless communication system.
II. Background
Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various communication content such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, etc. These wireless systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting multiple users by sharing the available system resources. Examples of such multiple-access systems include Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) systems, Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) systems, Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) systems, Orthogonal FDMA (OFDMA) systems, and Single-Carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA) systems.
A wireless communication system may include any number of base stations that can support communication for any number of user equipments (UEs). Each UE may communicate with one or more base stations via transmissions on the downlink and uplink. The downlink (or forward link) refers to the communication link from the base stations to the UEs, and the uplink (or reverse link) refers to the communication link from the UEs to the base stations.
A base station may periodically or sporadically transmit data to a UE. The base station may send control information on a control channel to inform the UE of an impending data transmission. Control information is also commonly referred to as signaling. The control information may be useful in assisting the UE to receive the data transmission. However, valuable system resources may be consumed to send the control information, which may then reduce system capacity for data transmission. There is therefore a need in the art for techniques to support data transmission with little or no overhead for control information.